The IMF's 2011 Annual Report chronicles the response of the Fund's Executive Board and staff to the global financial crisis and other events during financial year 2011, which covers the period from May 1, 2010, through April 30, 2011. The print version of the Report is available in eight languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish), along with a CD-ROM (available in English only) that includes the Report text and ancillary materials, including the Fund's Financial Statements for FY2011.

Notes

The IMF’s financial year (FY) begins on May 1 and ends the following April 30. This Annual Report covers FY2011, which ran from May 1, 2010, through April 30, 2011, though as necessary it makes reference to pertinent events that occurred after the end of April 2011 but before the Report went to press in mid-August.

See Public Information Notice (PIN) No. 10/128, “IMF Executive Board Discusses Follow-Up to Modernizing the Fund’s Surveillance Mandate and Modalities” (www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2010/pn10128.htm). The September Board discussion focused on selected ideas that had garnered support in previous Board discussions, including that in April 2010 on modernizing the Fund’s surveillance mandate (see PIN No. 10/52, “IMF Executive Board Discusses Modernizing the Surveillance Mandate and Modalities and Financial Sector Surveillance and the Mandate of the Fund,” www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2010/pn1052.htm), as well as a broad review of the Fund’s mandate covering surveillance, financing, and the stability of the international monetary system in February 2010 (see PIN No. 10/33, “The Fund’s Mandate—An Overview of Issues and Legal Framework,” www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2010/pn1033.htm).

The arrangement with Honduras is a blended Stand-By Arrangement and arrangement under the Standby Credit Facility (a concessional facility funded by the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust; see “Concessional Financing” later in the chapter).

Once a country has met certain criteria, the Executive Boards of the IMF and World Bank decide on its qualification for debt relief, and the international community commits to reducing debt to a level that is considered sustainable. This first stage under the HIPC Initiative is referred to as the decision point. Once a country reaches its decision point, it may immediately begin receiving interim relief on its debt service falling due.

The FSAP—the IMF’s premier tool for assessing members’ financial vulnerabilities and financial sector policies—is legally a technical assistance instrument with voluntary country participation, and assessments under the FSAP take place separately from members’ Article IV consultations, which are mandatory for all members.

The staff paper proposed the following definition of macro-prudential policy: “an overarching policy to address the stability of the financial system as a whole, the objective of which is to limit systemic, or system-wide, financial risk.”

The FSB established the Working Group on Data Gaps and Systemic Linkages in early 2010 to address the recommendations in the IMF-FSB report “The Financial Crisis and Information Gaps” on the design of a common template for systemically important financial institutions. The IMF led the work stream on data availability and collection of new statistics.

An amendment to the IMF’s Articles of Agreement enters into force for all members on the date the IMF certifies that three-fifths of IMF members representing 85 percent of the total voting power have accepted the amendment.

These included discussions of considerations surrounding the size of the Fund (April), as well as a number of discussions in the specific context of the Fourteenth General Review of Quotas: further considerations regarding quota shares (July), further considerations on the review in general (September), and possible elements of a compromise (October), as well as the culminating discussions on the Fourteenth General Review and elements of an agreement regarding IMF quota and governance reform (November).

The IMF’s framework for managing credit risk—that is, the risk that a borrower could fail to meet its financial obligations to the Fund—comprises a number of elements, including, in addition to those mentioned (its lending policies and its precautionary balances), the IMF’s safeguards assessments, its arrears strategy, and its burden-sharing mechanism. The IMF’s de facto preferred creditor status—that is, its members’ giving priority to repayment of their obligations to the Fund over those to other creditors—provides an additional measure of credit risk mitigation.

Credit tranches refer to the size of a member’s purchases (disbursements) in proportion to its quota in the IMF. Disbursements up to 25 percent of a member’s quota are disbursements under the first credit tranche and require members to demonstrate reasonable efforts to overcome their balance of payments problems. Disbursements above 25 percent of quota are referred to as upper credit tranche drawings; they are made in installments, as the borrower meets certain established performance targets. Such disbursements are normally associated with Stand-By or Extended Arrangements, as well as the Flexible Credit Line. Access to IMF resources outside an arrangement is rare and expected to remain so.

The voting power of each chair can be found in Appendix IV on the Annual Report web page (www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/ar/2011/eng/); changes in the Executive Board during FY2011 are listed in Appendix V on the Annual Report web page.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

AFRITAC

Africa Technical Assistance Center

AML/CFT

anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism

BIS

Bank for International Settlements

BRIC

Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, and China

EAC

External Audit Committee

ECB

European Central Bank

ECF

Extended Credit Facility

ENDA

Emergency Natural Disaster Assistance

FCL

Flexible Credit Line

FM

Fiscal Monitor

FSAP

Financial Sector Assessment Program

FSB

Financial Stability Board

FY

financial year

G-20

Group of Twenty

GAB

General Arrangements to Borrow

GDDS

General Data Dissemination System

GFSR

Global Financial Stability Report

GRA

General Resources Account

HIPC

Heavily Indebted Poor Countries

IDA

International Development Agency

IEO

Independent Evaluation Office

IFRS

International Financial Reporting Standards

ILO

International Labor Organization

IMFC

International Monetary and Financial Committee

IT

information technology

ITUC

International Trade Union Confederation

MAP

Mutual Assessment Process

MDRI

Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative

MTB

medium-term budget

NAB

New Arrangements to Borrow

OECD

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

OIA

Office of Internal Audit and Inspection

PCL

Precautionary Credit Line

PCDR

Post-Catastrophe Debt Relief

PRGT

Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust

RCF

Rapid Credit Facility

REO

Regional Economic Outlook

ROSC

Report on Observance of Standards and Codes

RTAC

Regional Technical Assistance Center

SDDS

Special Data Dissemination Standard

SDR

Special Drawing Right

TA

technical assistance

TTF

topical trust fund

UN

United Nations

WEO

World Economic Outlook

Credits

This Annual Report was prepared by the Editorial and Publications Division of the IMF’s External Relations Department. Tim Callen and Sandy Donaldson oversaw the work of the Report team, which was under the direction of the Executive Board’s Evaluation Committee, chaired by Moeketsi Majoro. The editors and chief writers were Michael Harrup and S. Alexandra Russell, who jointly coordinated the drafting and production processes as well. Andrea Richter Hume made substantial contributions to the writing, and Sherrie M. Brown proofread the text. Teresa Evaristo and Phoebe Kieti provided editorial assistance.